


In Full Bloom

by Lauren (notalwaysweak)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 20:42:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/pseuds/Lauren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Hogwarts AU where Snape survived.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Full Bloom

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Fandom Aid for Hurricane Sandy. Characters are not mine and I am making no profit off this work of fan fiction.

They do this almost every evening at dusk, once everyone is back in their common rooms or the staff room. Some evenings they stay in if it’s thundering or hailing, but the greenhouse is a warm haven and sometimes it’s nice to be in there with the rain pouring down. Some of the plants glow in the half-dark and there are fireflies and it’s enough light for Neville to see by to do what he wants to do.

The Severus Snape who he brings to the greenhouse isn’t the same acerbic man who taught him Potions, nor even the quieter, albeit still stern man who teaches the post-war school Defence Against the Dark Arts. They have a totally new Potions professor now who Headmistress McGonagall chose over the summer break one year, deciding it was finally time for someone who knew the Dark Arts inside and out to be teaching students how to defend themselves against them.

In the greenhouse, though, all Severus’s defences are down.

Usually the potting bench remains a potting bench while Neville stretches Severus out on it, opening the tiny clasps of his robe with a tug and a shake. Once or twice they’ve Transfigured it into a bed or a couch or something more comfortable, but both of them prefer the hard surface, the natural look of the ancient aged wood with Severus’s robes open on it and his skin pale against the black. Pale on black on pale.

* * *

It starts in Neville’s third year teaching. He’s taking cuttings of hyssop and marjoram, nothing terribly interesting, to take up to the castle for Severus’s final class as Potions master. Severus comes to find him, crushes a few of the leaves between his fingers as if testing them, and touches Neville’s cheek.

‘I heard from Potter today,’ he says. ‘It seemed quite urgent, so I thought it best to speak with you in person.’

Neville glances guiltily at the letters from this morning on the bench that he hasn’t opened yet. ‘I just—’

‘His wife’s been in a Quidditch accident. She’s alive, but she’s broken her leg and is recuperating at St. Mungo’s. He wanted to know if you’d received the notification.’

Neville’s fingers fumble ripping the letter open, and he has to lean against the bench to keep from dropping it. Severus puts a steadying arm across his shoulders, Neville turns his head, and somehow their mouths meet in the middle in something that’s not quite accidental and not quite deliberate.

‘I’ll tell the others where you’ve gone.’ Severus’s tone is odd; it takes Neville a moment to realise it’s kindness.

As he walks up to the castle, where Poppy has a permanent Portkey from the medical wing to St Mungo’s, he can feel Severus watching him, and his lips tingle.

* * *

Ginny is all right, complaining about the pain of the rapidly knitting bones. Harry gives Neville a hug and thanks him for coming. Hermione and Ron join them in the hospital cafeteria for dinner, and in the end Neville doesn’t get back to Hogwarts until after dark. There are plants that need tending and he casts _Lumos_ and hears a stifled yelp in the darkness of Greenhouse Four.

‘Longbottom, you’ve blinded me.’

‘Neville,’ Neville corrects cheerfully. ‘We agreed no more surnames now we’re both staff.’

‘Neville, then.’ The shadows move and turn into Severus, who’s watering the night-blooming heartsease and looking at the list that Neville usually keeps pinned up inside the greenhouse door. He doesn’t need it himself any more but it’s a handy reference if he has to tell someone else to mind the plants for him.

‘What are you doing down here?’

‘Remembering that without the plants grown in this greenhouse I’d be dead.’ Severus tilts the watering can again and then puts it down. ‘It might surprise you to realise that I can be grateful.’

Neville thinks of soft dry lips against his. ‘Not necessarily.’

‘And of course the whole school owes you a debt for killing that wretched snake and thus aiding in the end of the Dark Lord’s reign. Yet you’re here squeezing Bubotubers and Potter’s out there garnering even more fame and glory as an Auror.’

‘The last bit of Dark magic he undid was a hex on a garden gnome,’ Neville says flatly. ‘If you’re here to try to make me feel like I need pity—’

‘Do you?’

Neville sighs in exasperation, pins Severus to the workbench with his hands on Severus’s wrists, and kisses him. ‘Harry’s not the only one who grew up,’ he murmurs against Severus’s lips. ‘I don’t need your pity or anyone else’s.’ He can feel Severus’s pulse leaping at those soft points at his angular wrists. ‘There are better things we can do than talk about the past.’

* * *

The first night they try actual sex instead of just hands and mouths, there’s a thunderstorm and rain and Neville gets distracted once or twice by watching the giant hailstones falling into the lake and hoping they won’t shatter the glass. They won’t, of course; it’s resilient and magical as well.

He can’t break Severus, either. He feels sure that, pushing into Severus’s body, that something will tear or rip or something, but instead there’s an opening flowering heat and suddenly he’s buried to the root in Severus’s

( _his lover’s_ )

body, and it’s the first time he’s seen Severus come completely undone; even through their first explorations with hands and mouths some part of him stayed locked away, closed up like a house without a front door. But now... now. Now he’s got Severus open, and he’s got the key to the lock, stupid as it sounds even inside his head, which is where the thought is staying, thank you very much.

Thunder rolls overhead, but Neville still hears his name on Severus’s lips, and the quality of the lightning through the glass panels makes the other man’s body appear even paler under his. Neville has a lingering tan from working outdoors; Severus looks as though he hasn’t left the dungeons in years.

He’s here now, though, and that’s the main thing. Here, surrounded by the smell of growing things and earth and good green life; soon, the sharper smell of come as he cries out and presses hard against Neville’s stomach, sending Neville tumbling (figuratively, thank goodness) over the edge after him.

* * *

They do this almost every evening at dusk, once everyone is back in their common rooms or the staff room. Usually it’s in the greenhouse, for the sake of privacy, but one night Neville gets up and extends his hand to Severus and leads him out of the staff room, ignoring the sound of Hagrid choking on his Firewhisky and what sounds distinctly like a cackle from Minerva.

And that’s how they go about announcing it to everyone, really. It becomes fact to the world as it became fact to them; without fuss and without fanfare.

He’s not the Boy who Lived, after all. He’s just the one who survived quietly in the background, and lives now as he lived then; with tenacity and bravery and love.

One of those evenings he says it, he says, ‘I love you,’ as he’s pushing into Severus, and is gratified to watch those dark eyes go wide before Severus pulls him down into a kiss without words that nonetheless says everything.


End file.
